My how time flies. It’s hard to believe it’s been a whole year since the PS3 and Wii crashed the next gen party. The past year has seen gaming as a whole reach unseen heights. With success comes hate though, and the fanboys fought at a blistering pace.

One particular argument has peaked my interest among many though. Which console has the superior lineup, PS3 or Wii? It’s relatively easy to argue for either console in my opinion, but most people are pretty one sided when it comes to this question. After an analysis of both libraries using different methods, I concluded that the winner depends on how you compare the two. Like Jay-Z said: Men lie, women lie, numbers don’t.

Most people use exclusives as ammo when defending or bashing the current gen consoles. This makes sense because it allows for the consoles to go head to head with one another. So I hopped on Gamerankings and looked up the top 5 and top 10 exclusives for each system. By exclusive, I mean that the game is only on one of the current gen consoles. So if a game is on Wii, PS2 and PSP, it counts for the Wii. Here are the lists as of Thanksgiving day. The minimum review amount was set to zero to include any game that has been reviewed at least once.

Now we’ll play with these lists for a lil while. The first thing that jumps out at you are the scores right? The Wii has an unmistakable advantage there. The Wii’s top four games all outscore the highest ranked game on PS3. Advantage: Wii? Not so fast. If we dig a little deeper, we can learn some things about each console from these lists. Here’s a few comparisons I noticed.

New Franchises – Wii (2) PS3 (4)The Wii has only two games on the list that aren’t sequels. Meanwhile, the PS3 has four. So right now, the Wii is pretty much the sequel machine when it comes to their best games. Nothing new there. The PS3, on the other hand, debuted four new franchises to good reviews. So while Nintendo stuck to their guns for year one, Sony introduced a few new games that could very likely be better the second time around.

3rd Party Games – Wii (5) PS3 (7)Look at the Wii’s top 5. 3 Nintendo games, one port of a Capcom game, and another Capcom game. So basically only one of the five highest rated Wii games is from a third party. And there are 5 out of 10 third party games on the list, but one is a port and two are just different entries from the same game. Meanwhile, the PS3 has seven third party games in their top 10. Yet everyone is screaming about how hard it is to make a game on the PS3. If Sony are the only ones who can do it, why do they only have 3 games in the top 10? Hell, Insomniac has two of the top three spots! Naughty Dog, Team Ninja and Incognito round out the top five. No Sony, hmmm.

VarietyBoth lists are well represented in this regard. The Wii has a bit of everything. Platforming here, survival horror there, adventure up the street, sports around the corner. You name it, it’s probably represented in the top 10. PS3 is more of the same though. Most of the same genres are represented, so this category is pretty much a wash.

I could go on for hours, but in the second and final segment of this comparison I will add multi-platform games to the mix. Will the inclusion of those games give the PS3 the edge over the Wii in the battle for software supremacy? You’ll have to wait and see. But for now, the sheer greatness of the Wii’s flagship titles gives Nintendo the edge when it comes to exclusives.